The Bridge Officers

Discussions about the history of the ship, technical details, etc.

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RF
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Post by RF »

Terje Langoy wrote:Hello.

One thing is for sure with the above information about Hoffmann. He saw the possibilities offered with the twins operating in pair...

By the way, wouldn't it be better having Gneisenau to act as bait as she had more reliable machinery?

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What, with Admiral Lutjens himself on board???
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Terje Langoy
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Post by Terje Langoy »

Hello, RF.

You make a very good point! I were just thinking about something I read recently about the Renown keeping pace with the Twins because the machinery of the Scharnhorst kept slowing them both down. And if she would suffer severe machinery failure while having the Malaya at her tail, that would not be a very good thing. But at the battle of North Cape, one must keep in mind that she was, at the time when DoY's shell made it's way into her, about to leave the RN forces behind. It seems like the Scharnhorst had a fate similar to that of the Bismarck. Running, crippled, intercepted and sunk. She was not attacking any battleships at this time. She had her heads out for a convoy and countered a British trap instead. But in the above scenario of yours, Malaya would have a little problem at hand. Not at the risk of being sunk herself but having her convoy harrased by two faster ships. Could Lütjens decision not to engage be due to the good, old doctrine of avoiding unfavourable battle? The complications of this would of course be to know when the battle becomes unfavourable.

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Post by paulcadogan »

Hi RF & Terje,

I think the encounter you are discussing actually involved the Ramillies not the Malaya - athough later the "Twins" did encounter convoys escorted by Malaya and Rodney respectively from which they also withdrew.

Lutjens, I think, was following his strict orders not to engage an enemy of similar or greater strength. The thing is, handled the right way, the Germans could well have pulled off the attack without coming under effective fire from the poor old Ramillies who probably would be hard pressed to maintain 20 knots! Her 15-inch guns only had 20 degree elevation for a maximum range of 23,000 yards (I'm not sure if they were using supercharges at that time) less than the maximum range of S & G's 11-inchers. Scharnhorst could have kept out of range while taking Ramillies under fire to slowly draw her away allowing Gneisenau to close the convoy - which was Hoffmann's idea, basically.

All in all, Ramillies just had to emit a few "angry puffs of smoke" (to quote Cajus Bekker) from her funnel and the encounter was over. According to that author, Lutjens did not know about Scharnhorst's attempted strategy until later and when he found out he was "furious" - thinking that his ships had been recognized and his plan of action betrayed. In actual fact, Ramillies (like Renown the year before) thought Scharnhorst was a Hipper-class cruiser (no doubt thanks to the position of her mainmast).

I think most, if not all German naval officers were hampered by their "no unnecessary risk" orders. River Plate showed that even weaker warships could inflict problematic damage that, far from safe port, could lead to the loss of the ship. Bismarck's damage in the Denmark Strait brought this home even more forcefully. This indirectly led to the defeat in the Barents Sea and the loss of the Scharnhorst.

Thus, it was not that the bridge officers were less than competent - they were restrained by orders and expected to succeed despite this. History should judge them in this light.

Best regards.

Paul
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Post by Bgile »

I doubt S & G could have disabled an R class at ranges in excess of 23,000 yds. The deck penetration of their 11" shells wasn't very good. Anything could happen, but I think it's likely they would have used up a lot of their ammunition to no great effect.
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Post by tommy303 »

Paul has a very good point. It is most difficult to judge Luetjens or any other German admiral or warship captain without first considering the restrictive orders under which they operated. One has to remember that these men served under a totalitarian regime and in wartime, and the orders to avoid unnecssary risks or engage enemies of equal or greater power came directly from the Fuehrer. One has only to look at how Marschall's successful sweep, which netted the Glorious and her two escorts, was received. Instead of hearty congratulations for a job well done, Marschall was accused of exceeding his authority and forced to resign as fleet commander. Little wonder that his successors chose to follow orders and hope for the better.

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Post by Antonio Bonomi »

Ciao all,

well said Tommy, I cannot agree with you more ....... :clap:

Those were Marine Officers not grew as blind executors, mostly already Kaiserliche Marine Officers, so one can imagine why they were receiving Hitler with only the military salute, and forced to give him the Nazi official salute only after been ''requested'' to do so, for obvious reasons.

There is a very interesting photo sequence of Adm Lutjens under those circumstances on board Tirpitz on May 5th, 1941 in Gdynia.

More, ... differently than Adm Marschall, Adm Lutjens had jewish origin and was saved on 1934 by Adm Raeder itself from been '' forced '' to dismiss from Kriegsmarine.

Now you can imagine the pressure on Adm Lutjens on that new position,....after Adm Marschall,..... but he accepted and sailed with Bismarck for Op. Rheinubung,.. probably with some ''controllers'' on his staff,...just to make sure he was correctly executing received orders.

Now it is more logic why, ...after the morning encounter on Denmark Strait, ... he signalled to Berlin that he was engaged by 2 battleships,.. and waited a bit,.. making both Schneider and Lindemann going mad,.. before allowing them to open fire, ..... simply because at that point nobody could have blamed him,.. for not having done that allowing the engagement.

But soon after the orders were clear and good, very good,.. and risk taking,.. we should have asked Brinkmann opinion about them..... and his ''boss'' Vize-Adm Schmundt too..... after.

My opinion,.. personal,.. of course.

Ciao Antonio :D
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:-)

Post by Laurenz »

Dear Karl,

""that´s the way Schanhorst ended in the bottom of the sea.""


Scharnhorts radar was out of order. And even with a "german" radar a difficult match.
Change the situation to (for example) south coast of Italy on high noon.
This would change the story significantly.
From my viewpoint it was senseless to bring a german BB in action at the north cape during the winter.

I do not believe that there was a big difference, between Lindemann, Brinkmann, Langsdorff and others. Maybe Antonio is right. This might the reason they were captains and not admirals :-)

Kind regards,
L.
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Post by RF »

paulcadogan wrote:
I think most, if not all German naval officers were hampered by their "no unnecessary risk" orders. River Plate showed that even weaker warships could inflict problematic damage that, far from safe port, could lead to the loss of the ship. Bismarck's damage in the Denmark Strait brought this home even more forcefully. This indirectly led to the defeat in the Barents Sea and the loss of the Scharnhorst.

Thus, it was not that the bridge officers were less than competent - they were restrained by orders and expected to succeed despite this. History should judge them in this light.

Best regards.

Paul
I think this is exactly it - and the payoff is defeat anyway.

The real paradox shown by the ''no unnecessary risks order'' is that of a master race with an inferiority complex, which in nazi political terms is exactly what it is. And of course the nazis didn't have the intelligence to see that.
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Re: :-)

Post by RF »

Laurenz wrote:
From my viewpoint it was senseless to bring a german BB in action at the north cape during the winter.

I do not believe that there was a big difference, between Lindemann, Brinkmann, Langsdorff and others. Maybe Antonio is right. This might the reason they were captains and not admirals :-)

Kind regards,
L.
It wasn't the captains who brought Scharnhorst into action in December 1943, it was Donitz who was trying to make a political point with Hitler.

Left to Bey, Hintz and Johannesson the operation would never have been launched.
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North Cape

Post by Laurenz »

As I told you, yesterday night i read the story in Niemitz' Seapower book.
Dönitz remarked
if not all German naval officers were hampered by their "no unnecessary risk" orders
this problem, mentioned by Niemitz. But the problem was that structure of command was not changed, only the taking risk orders would have been eased. So it always took too long time to send and receive orders and informations.
Niemitz critisized Bey several times a little bit. the main aspect was that he gave orders to his destroyers but he did not informed them about his plans of action with Scharnhorst, so there was a lack of coordination. This worked much better on the british side.
Left to Bey, Hintz and Johannesson the operation would never have been launched.
That is totally true.
German BB's should always patrol in an area, where they could use their optical advantage, when the enemy is in sight to balance the british radar advantage.
But at the northcape in winter nobody is in sight.
Kind regards,
L.
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Re: North Cape

Post by RF »

Laurenz wrote:
That is totally true.
German BB's should always patrol in an area, where they could use their optical advantage, when the enemy is in sight to balance the british radar advantage.
But at the northcape in winter nobody is in sight.
Kind regards,
L.
Don't forget that the Germans did have the opportunity to develop radar. After all, they had naval radar first, with the development of Seetakt in 1931.
Initially it was the British who were slow to start, considering that radar was first demonstrated by John Logie-Baird in 1927, and Robert Watson-Watt didn't design his system until 1934.
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RADAR

Post by Laurenz »

Dear RF,
this is correct.
German TV repeated several times a report about the two main German radar guys, i forgot the names.
Both got not enough support.
I think this is caused by the German political leadership, which have had no connection to the modern technic demands.
One of these leaders, Göring, was under drugs (morphium) since (i believe) 1923, when he received a shot between his legs.
Görings intelligence came back very late, when he was prisoner of war before Nürnberg. He became clean in his cell.
So, dear RF, a military leader, for example Raeder, has to calculate under the conditions and possebilies has has in reality.
So still i think Raeders proposal to use Dakar as the main base for the German big ships, was quit well, (instead of the Northcape).
Kind regards,
L.
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Post by RF »

Laurenz,

The Reichsmarine (as it then was) didn't develop radar because they didn't see any real use for it. Interestingly the Japanese, who found out about radar because the Germans had it, also saw no practical use for it. This was nothing to do with political leadership, it was purely a wrong military decision.

As an aside, when the British first used tanks in 1917, they were so individually unrealible and primitive in performance that when the Germans captured some of them they decided that they didn't need any tanks in the German Army. Only after they were used successfully against them did the Germans start to change their mind; and even then it was junior officers who led the way, such as Guderian, and they had to fight against a very conservative military leadership....

It was much the same story with radar, and also a similar story as with the development of the jet engine for aircraft - if the pioneers had their way the jet fighter could have been in operation in several countries by the late 1930's, including both Germany and Italy.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
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